dolce far niente
dolce far niente
damn girly, you wrote this? (hopeful)
DOLCE FAR NIENTE (ITALIAN): sweetness [of] doing nothing, sweet idleness
If I can sum up the experience of my life over the last few months it would be like this:
I’ve been sitting on the floor of my room as the sun sets, reading back to myself all the words I’ve written over the last 7ish months, getting lost in the way my mind works— the way I capture myself and my life. The whole experience is really just a fluctuation between me thinking, “damn girly, you wrote this? (painful)”, to “damn girly, you wrote this? (sad)” to “damn girly, you wrote this? (affectionate)”.
Most writers reflect on their lives through their own words, it’s perhaps the greatest treasure we gift ourselves: a chronological account of our mind throughout the years, a personal deep dive of all the moments we felt were important enough to write about. There’s something satisfying (and sinister) about being able to literally crawl back into the deepest hollows of your mind. A mind that has continued to develop since that brief snapshot in time.
That’s all writing really is, isn’t it? A confessional: a brief insight into our minds, forever frozen in time within that particular moment, as we struggle to navigate our heavy feelings and emotions.
Then we look back months, years, or decades later, straining to try to remember what we were feeling in those moments. However, it can be hard to feel connected to the version of ourselves that we were when we wrote that journal entry or notes app poem, as we continue to age and our mindset changes. And yet, what doesn’t change is that pain, which is forever encapsulated on those pages, no matter how smudged the ink gets. As the years stretch on your writing becomes a personal bible, one you study, reread, view as gospel even.
Through the spiritual practice of devotion to oneself, I have noticed an alarming pattern. Most of my documented moments (the journals I’ve packed and brought with me from house to house, apartment to apartment) are full of pain and suffering.
Inside of them exists entire months that were completely skipped over, not because I was stuck in a coma or trying to get a PhD, but because I was happy. I was happy and I never felt the need to write about it. I didn’t feel the need to ever document my happiness. Why?
Inside of me exists this notion that only my suffering is worth noticing; only my pain is worth hearing about.
Yet, by skipping over months— leaving out memories, and moments, and eras of my life when, I know I spent most days joyful, means now when I look back I have no proof of it. It’s as if it ceases to exist, pushed aside to make space for my pain. Only to be remembered through my camera roll and blurring memory.
So of course, I sat and pondered this question (as I do). Why is it so hard for me to write anything when I’m experiencing a blitheful season of my life? Why do I not think my happiness is worth remembering?
I thought back to what an old writing professor told me: “Write about what you know”. He would always say the best writing comes from experience, and one day he looked at me, more sincerely than I had ever seen him look before, and told me that all my best work was dripping in loneliness. My best writing was sad and lonely because that’s what I knew.
It seemed to me that my best work happened during periods of my life when I was stuck in the all-consuming black hole known as human suffering. I chained myself to that reality, writing my life story devoid of any good moments.
It’s so easy for me to pick up a pen and write page after page when I’m upset, or sad, or lonely— the words flow out of me as if it’s second nature. In a way it is; I don’t have to think about it, the words come out faster than I can write or type or say. It’s a never-ending river, so much so that normally I have to force myself to stop. I can express it so well: sadness, despair, longing, yearning, pain, suffering. My vocabulary is filled to the brim with words to perfectly capture it. It’s so familiar to me.
Then it clicked.
I struggle so much with writing about joy and excitement and happiness and bliss and pleasure because it doesn’t feel familiar. I haven’t spent years drowning in those emotions or feelings the same way I have pain. I never developed a craving for capturing those experiences in the same way I did suffering. Nothing jumps out of my chest when I’m experiencing all-consuming joy.
Simply put, I lack the vocabulary to describe the good stuff, to capture them in any way that would do them justice.
The saddest parts of my mind are always so loud, so demanding; I cannot rest without getting it out on paper. Yet, the happiest parts are silent, never feeling the same desire to be expressed, laying dormant in my subconscious for fear that their existence in my reality is temporary. They are always reminded that I seem to go searching for suffering, that pain takes up the majority of my mind. Why bother trying to compete with a clear winner? So, they don’t bother to make themselves known, sliding into the background as best they can.
I’ve built so much of my life on the emphasised foundation of sadness, and in my pursuit to justify the suffering I’ve gone through, I’ve erased the very idea that happiness is something that is meant to be enjoyed. If I passed away today and someone read through my journals they would think I lived a very sad, painful life. And that’s not the truth. Very far from it actually.
There are parts of my life that have been, and still are, painful and sad (as I’m sure there are in yours, it’s the very condition of human life). But so much of my life has also been coated in love and joy and happiness— and I’ve written about none of it.
Thinking back now, the majority of the time I write about happiness and pleasure and joy is when I’m in love. When I have someone else who can act as a vessel for my joy, when I have someone else as a witness to it.
I write poem after poem, sonnet after sonnet, for lovers. Writers are always writing either about love or the absence of it, aren’t they? We’re predictable in that way. This is not to say I view the people in my life that I’ve loved as muses to throw my desires onto, though, in my younger years, I fear I may have been guilty of that.
It would be dishonest of me to say though that I don’t use the very notion of love as a muse. I find it easier to experience feelings of joy and happiness when I’m standing beside someone, as if our union provides tangible proof for me to believe I am in fact, happy.
And so I write about them, about the things I feel for them, the ways they make me feel loved, the way life seems more colourful and bold while in their embrace. I create a whole world of happiness based around them, or at least I did. I’ve been very careful as I’ve gotten older to not put that pressure on someone, to not tie my foundation of happiness to them like an anchor. No one can be your main source of joy.
However, the love I was writing about while I was in relationships as a teenager and in my early twenties, wasn’t based in reality— I was writing about fairytales that didn’t exist, trying to pin all my misunderstood “good feelings” onto someone else because I thought myself incapable of ever feeling that good while existing in solitude. To no fault of their own, I made Gods out of Mortals, forgetting that none of us can ever fully escape our mortality, even when we’re in love. No one deserves that kind of pressure, and I realise now how unfair it was of me to ever think the opposite.
I say this to present the arguement mostly to myself, that I have spent a very long time erasing the good from my life or tricking myself into thinking I need to be in a romantic relationship to experience elation. By doing so I’ve established the thought in my mind that only my suffering is worth mentioning, that my value lies only in the struggles I’ve emerged victorious from. By only documenting the particular brand of happiness I feel when I’m in love and tying all my happiness to another— tethering my joy like a lifeline to a person, I’ve convinced myself that I will only ever feel the ecstasy of happiness when I’m loved romantically.
In reality, most of the happiness I’ve experienced in my life has been outside the pursuit of romance. I feel happiest engaging in my passions, my friendships, my work, travelling, writing: on and on the list goes. Of course, there is a very distinct variation of happiness I experience while in love (as we all do, love has a funny way of making us fall in love with every aspect of life), I have a myriad of meaningful pursuits in my life that make me feel purposeful, that give my life real, honest, joyful substance.
Yet, you wouldn’t know it from reading my writing. The story of my life seems eerily devoid of it.
Looking back on last month’s newsletter, I spent a large portion of it expressing my recent struggles with finding my voice after undergoing what was a pretty large spiritual and mental transformation this winter (which I guess I asked for). Now, I understand why I was struggling. I had spent so many years developing a strong voice and vocabulary for my pain, neglecting to build a foundation that allowed me to express the good in my life. So much so that I now feel as though I’m just beginning to learn the alphabet of my joy.
However, I’m stepping into a period of my life of exultation and felicity— my days drowning in never-ending swirls of happiness. I would be lying to you if I said that observation doesn’t scare the fuck out of me. I’m still learning to accept that I'm allowed to be happy, that I don’t need to feel guilty for it.
It’s been tough work breaking down the very foundation of my psyche. It’s been eye-opening in a way I didn’t imagine it would be.
I’ll be the first to admit that maybe I drank a little too much Kool-aid: I spent the cold months of this year locked away in my room, shuffling tarot cards and reading book after book on philosophy, the human psyche, spiritual transformation, and anything else I could get my hands on that I felt like would “enlighten” me.
I might have gone a wee bit overboard for a sec, but it pushed me to the arrival of who I am now: someone who is happy, someone who is allowing herself to feel happy without justifying it, without tainting it with the inherent guilt and shame that stems from thinking that I don’t deserve it.
This has been a very long-winded monologue all to state that I’m going to make a very real and active effort to begin documenting my happiness, my accomplishments, my passions with the same intensity that I do my suffering, my pain, my despair.
The story of my life (like yours), is not black or white. It is not just full of sadness, nor is it full of happiness. Human existence ebbs and flows, bringing us seasons of happiness followed by sadness followed by confusion followed by happiness again. I’ve learned that it’s all a cycle, one I have no control over. I can only control myself, my reactions, my actions, my choices.
The past year has taught me that I don’t need to sentence myself to years of unnecessary suffering because some outdated part of myself feels deserving of it. I’ve welcomed the summer sun with open arms, letting the rays of the sun play across my face in the name of dolce far niente.
I am allowing myself pleasure without justification, I am finding a voice to express that pleasure without tainting it in sorrow. I am finding sweetness in mundane happiness.
And most importantly, I’m keeping a fucking record of it from now on.
My advice for this month is simple. Maybe this is more a challenge than advice.
I challenge you to revel in simple pleasure. To sit in the sun eating a full watermelon and not think of any of your responsibilities or stressors. Think of nothing at all. Just sit and take it all in. Feel the sun on your skin, the kiss of warmth that lingers on your body. Feel the sweat roll down your leg as your body warms up. Feel the juice of the watermelon roll down your chin. Feel it all. And don’t feel bad about it. Don’t think you should be somewhere else, doing something else. Gift yourself evenjust five minutes of solitary, simple pleasure.
It’s harder than it sounds, trust me.
In an effort to document the things in my life that I’m proud of, enjoy this video I recently did with my very talented hair stylist who I’m lucky enough to call a good friend, (and who has gone out of her way to support me and See You Next Tuesday in any way she can) and who I am very grateful to have in my life <3
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this month’s edition of Confessions of a 20-Something. I encourage you to share this with your close friends if you feel like it’s the kind of thing they’d be into.
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Until next month …